Cunninghamia 1 (I): 1-6(1981) 
1 
FORTY YEARS AGO 
N. C. W. Beadle* 
Nineteen thirty nine was a good year in Western New South Wales (though not an 
exceptionally wet one) and a wealth of herbaceous growth had transformed the arid 
zone into a fairyland of colour. Reports reached Sydney that many species which 
had not been seen for a couple of decades were in flower and that some new species 
might possibly be found. 
Some enterprising member or members of the Linnean Society of New South 
Wales suggested that parties of botanists should visit the area to make collections. 
Two groups of people were selected, one consisting of four ladies who were to travel 
by car to Broken Hill, thence to proceed south to Wentworth and home by a southern 
highway. The other group, all male, was to proceed by car to Broken Hill and then 
travel northward to fibooburra and the Queensland border, returning home by a 
northern route. 
I was lucky enough to be included in this male party led by Mr W. A. W. de 
Beuzevillc of the Forestry Commission, who drove us without mishap along the 
prescribed route. The others were Dr P. Brough, Senior Lecturer in Botany at the 
University of Sydney, and Trevor Langford-Smith (now Professor of Geography 
at the University of Sydney, then a post-graduate student in the Department of 
Geography) (Figure 1). For me, the trip was an historic one since, soon after our 
return to Sydney, the newly established Soil Conservation Service of New South 
Wales advertised for a botanist to work on a vegetation and erosion survey of the 
far west of the State. Having collected plants in this area I felt that I would have 
some qualification for such a job, though I was soon to realize that I was really 
poorly equipped. Indeed, in those days no ecology at all was included in the botany 
course and my knowledge of the grasses consisted of a superficial look at the awn 
of Stipa and the spikelet of a Bromus. However, the trip of 1939 provided me with 
a lot of new knowledge, including illustrations of vegetation patterns in relation to 
soil and climate, community structure, floristic composition, succession, the idea of 
transects and the impact of man and his domestic stock on the stability of the natural 
vegetative cover. 
At this point the problems associated with vegetation survey work in 1939 and 
1979 may be compared. Two major strides have been made in this forty-year period. 
Firstly, modern students are provided with a different kind of training which equips 
them better for field and conservation studies, broadly classed under ‘ecology'. 
Secondly, field workers have available aerial surveys which are invaluable for mapping. 
Smaller advantages of today include a better network of roads and better road 
surfaces, refrigeration, lighter camping gear, plastic bags and bottles, motels and 
caravans. But some of these have disadvantages for the modern ecologist, especially 
the high-speed roads which enable us to travel at such a rate that the driver, at least, 
and possibly the passengers, see nothing but bitumen, sometimes viewing the vege¬ 
tation through the side windows as long rectangles of green. 
The first part of our trip was ‘modern’ in so far as we sped westward to reach 
the plains, stopping only for essentials until we had left Dubbo. Thereafter, the 
mid-western eucalypts (chiefly Bimble Box— E. populnea) were accompanied by such 
tall shrubs or small trees as Myall (Acacia peiuiula, on more clayey soils), 
Wilga (Geijera parviflora), Warrior Bush (Apophyllum anomalum), Belah 
{Casuarina cristata), Yarran (Acacia homalophylla) and Wild Orange (Capparis 
* Address: Emeritus Professor, University of New England, Armidale, N.S.W. 
